Investigation picks up in tollway plane crash

A small jet chartered to fly former President Bush to Ecuador Monday was well below normal altitude when it clipped a toll road light tower and crashed into a muddy field three miles south of Hobby Airport, killing the crew of three.

The vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said the plane should have been at an altitude of about 1,000 feet when it hit the 125-foot tower on the South Sam Houston Tollway.

NTSB Vice Chairman Mark Rosenker declined to speculate as to why the plane was so low or whether the thick fog that blanketed Houston just before dawn Monday contributed to the crash.

Investigators recovered the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the wreckage, he said. The recorders were expected to arrive in Washington late Monday. They were believed to be intact, but Rosenker said investigators will not know for sure until they start trying to recover data from them this morning.

"We are treating this at the moment as a transportation accident," Rosenker said.

The jet hit a light tower near a toll booth, leaving a wing there and showering the road with debris and jet fuel before crashing into a field just north of the tollway, between South Wayside and Cullen. The craft burst into flame after it crashed, then exploded.

A van and a pickup on the tollway were damaged by falling debris, but no one was injured.

Frechette, who was to accompany Bush on the trip to Ecuador, said they were nearing the airport when they heard reports of a plane crash. They didn't learn that the crash involved the plane they were to meet until after they arrived at the airport, he said.

"I was deeply saddened to hear of the plane crash this morning," Bush said in a statement. "I have flown with this crew before and knew them well. I join in sending my heartfelt condolences to each and every member of their families."

Frechette said President Bush canceled his trip to Ecuador and will reschedule the speech.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported the plane's registered owner as Jet Place Inc. of Tulsa, Okla., a charter company that declined Monday to identify the three crew members. It was operated by a sister company, Business Jet Services, out of Love Field. The bodies of the crew, two male pilots and a female flight attendant, were recovered late in the morning from the muddy field where the plane fell.

The Harris County Medical Examiner's office will perform autopsies, including toxicology tests, on the bodies.

Rosenker would not speculate on the cause of the crash. In response to a question, Rosenker said it was unknown whether the pilot was flying on instruments.

In addition to reviewing the jet's maintenance and crew histories, investigators will interview people who have flown with the crew before. It had not been determined Monday whether Bush would be among those interviewed.

Rosenker, who is based in Washington, D.C., was accompanied by an investigative team of about 15 people, including officials from the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration.

FBI involvement is standard procedure, he said, and not related to the fact that the plane was en route to pick up the former president. The FBI will help with evidence, he said.

"At no point did the pilot say he was in distress," Smith said. "But when they spoke to him again, he wasn't there."

Controllers issued an alert for the jet at 6:19 a.m., Smith said. Sunrise was 6:52 a.m.

Smith said Runway 4 at Hobby, to which the plane was directed, is equipped to handle planes on autopilot. However, neither he nor a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration would comment on whether the plane was equipped with autopilot or was using it when it crashed.

National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Roesler said Hobby observers reported visibility at one-eighth of a mile horizontally and 100 feet vertically. There was a 100-foot layer of ground fog, plus cloud layers at 600 feet and 5,500 feet, he said.

Smith said the runway visual range — the distance at which a pilot could see the runway or its lights — was 1,500 feet.

As firefighters battled the flames, emergency personnel began searching for victims, Williams said.

That search went on for some time, even after three bodies had been found by late morning, Williams said. A tracking dog worked the nearly two-acre debris field to make sure all victims had been accounted for.

Debris on the tollway could not be disturbed before NTSB investigators inspected it, and the tollway remained closed in both directions between Cullen and Wayside for most of the day. The tollway's eastbound feeder was reopened Monday afternoon, but the westbound feeder remained closed several hours longer so it could be used as a staging area for emergency and investigative vehicles.

There was heavy fog in the area when the crash occurred Monday, but Smith said it was unknown whether that was a factor in the crash.

"Visibility wasn't ideal," he said. "But takeoffs and landings were proceeding normally at the time," at Hobby Airport. The crash did not affect any operations at Hobby, Smith said.

The plane struck the light tower on the tollway, about five 5 feet from the top. At that distance from the airport — about 3 1/4 miles from its intended runway — the jet should have been at an altitude of about 1,000 feet, Rosenker said.

Debris from the plane's impact with the light tower rained onto the tollway, breaking the windshield of a minivan and flattening two tires on a pickup truck, but caused no injuries to the drivers.

Jonathan Kaufman of Sugar Land was taking his wife and three children to the airport, when a 15-pound cylinder crashed through their windshield and landed on the floor of their minivan. Delayed by the crash, the mother and children caught a later flight out of Bush Intercontinental Airport.

"We all had a lot to be thankful for," Karen Kaufman said after landing in Newark, N.J.

Houston police Sgt. David Crain said witnesses to Monday's fiery crash were interviewed by police and by FAA investigators, and will have to retell their stories for the NTSB.

After their initial interviews Monday morning, the witnesses were released, Crain said.